The Untold Story
by mtrfan1029
Summary: Dilana is a 13-year old orphan girl living with her friends Lewis and Goob. When she head to the science fair with her school pal, Carolynn, to suport Lewis with his recent creation, she ends up running into an unplanned adventure. R&R please.
1. The Nightmare

Author's Note: Based on the "Talk to Wilbur!" thread on the discussion forum.

Thanks to Elizabeth900 who is aiding me in the making of this. You rock, Elizabeth!

Also, this story takes place during the movie. All characters from _Meet the Robinsons_ are property of the Walt Disney Company. All characters that did not appear in the movie belong to Elizabeth900 and me

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A city lay blanketed in the dark of night. Dots of artificial light sliced through the obscurity of the blackened world. Their origins were lampposts; some standing erect and proper, their white heads turned to the sky while others hung their heads to the asphalt below, as if it were a shame to provide the city with light. The bedlam fermenting in the ranks of the grime- covered buildings added the last component to the city atmosphere.

Suddenly, like a siren from an ambulance, a scream joined in the clamor of the night. A girl tossed spastically in her bed, her mind in the midst of a nightmare. "HELP!!!! MOM!!!! DAD!!!!!!!!" She called to the walls of her sleeping quarters, as her arms grouped blindly around. In her mind's eye, she was a toddler, about four years of age, who had been tossed into a trash bag by some mysterious stranger. She was deeply befuddled at this sudden event, but even she knew something didn't quite feel normal -at all. She cried for her parents, her relatives- anyone! She pressed a hand to the bag, as if she expected it to crumble like sand under her touch. She could hear people calling her name, responding to her helpless cries, but one shouted about above all the others.

"Dilana? **Dilana?!?**" A hand grabbed her right shoulder and lightly shook her awake. The frightening visions, the terror and the bag melted into her memory. Her brown eyes fluttered open to reality. She found herself lying in her bed, her blankets twisted around her body in a strange crudely-made toga. A boy's blue eyes gazed at her, stricken with worry. "Are you okay?" the boy asked, his voice holding a hint of sympathy.

Dilana sat up and struggled to unravel the tangled mess her blankets had become. Her hands shook with the shock of the dream and she could still hear the echo of her screams resounding in her head. When she finally had reassembled the cloth to a less constricting manner, she remembered she had left her friend's question unanswered. "I-I'm fine, Lewis." She stuttered, her tongue faltering with every word. She faced Lewis and gave him an unstable smile. "Nothing to worry about."

Right away, Dilana knew the twelve-year old wasn't convinced. She was horrible at being impassive; she might as well have written all her emotions onto her forehead in permanent ink. Besides, even without his glasses, Dilana was positive he could see her nervous sweat clinging to her neck and the fear glazing her eyes. Lewis's eyes softened with more sympathy as he spoke. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Before Dilana could reply, another voice floated down the hallway. "I'm telling you, someone intruded through Dilana's window!" The grouchy, careless tone heralded the arrival another friend of Dilana's. Goob casted his tired gaze into the room, his eyelids drooping like wilting leaves- lacking the energy to lift themselves to full height. His short, unsteady footsteps carried him until he stood next to Lewis. "Well?" he inquired, raising his head until he maintained eye contact with the blond-haired genius. "Any evidence of the culprit?"

Lewis flinched a tiny bit, as if he had awoken from a short slumber. "Huh?" he asked dumbly, obliviously not understanding his roommate's question.

Goob sighed and rolled his eyes. "For a genius, you sure have a short attention span…." He grumbled.

"Oh my, Dilana!" a feminine voice called urgently. Mildred, the caretaker, rushed to the bed where the girl lay and sat down on the mattresses bed. "Are you okay?"

Dilana groaned and let her head fall onto the flat pillow she slept on every night. How many times would people question her of her well-being? "Yes!" she cried bitterly. "I'm perfectly fine. There is nothing to see here."

Mildred, to Dilana's annoyance, tucked a loose strand of her long black hair behind her ear. "Was it a bad dream?"

Dilana merely nodded. She turned to face the off-white plaster of the walls, not wishing to discuss her distraught nightmare with others. Behind her, she heard Mildred speak to the boys: "Goob, why did you say someone was murdering her?'

"Well, it sure sounded like it!"

"Do you know what she was dreaming about, Lewis?"

"No. I know as much as you do."

Dilana didn't think her "company" would leave without any knowledge of her troubles. As if the statement were solely spoken to contradict her thoughts, Goob grumbled, "I'm going to bed. I don't see much point in standing here waiting for something that will never come."

A series of footsteps proceeded as Goob headed down the hallway back to the room he shared with Lewis. Dilana returned her gaze back to the remainder of the party. She sighed heavily before beginning her summary of her dream: "Okay. If you guys REALLY want to know what happened, here it is: I was in bed in another house. I was a toddler in my dream and I had been tucked in by my parents."

"Parents?" Mildred's eyebrows furrowed along her tan skin. "Strange…"

Lewis looked deep in thought, as if he were figuring out a gigantic puzzle in his head. "Did the parents in your dream look familiar?"

Dilana shook her head. "I didn't see their faces. Just silhouettes. And I don't even remember what my parents looked like." The last sentence she spoke cut deeper into her heart more than anything else. She knew that many orphans who were taken in at the orphanage had no living memory of their parents. Lewis happened to fall under this category, being that his mother gave him up as a newborn child. Dilana held no excuse to forget the ones who had raised her in the first four years of her life. She had arrived at her current home as a filthy, disowned toddler with an egg-sized bump on her head. She didn't recall anything about her other life, except her first name.

Dilana knew she suffered from amnesia. It had been her weakness-to never know her past. She would always have trouble with memorization at school, forgetting the meanings of vocabulary words or what the atomic number of a certain element happened to be. She could stay up till all hours, drilling the facts into her head until she could recite them without flaw, but next morning, it could evaporate into nothingness like water that has been sitting in the sun.

Dilana shook away her sorrow and continued to reminisce her dream. "Shortly after I was tucked in, this shadow ran across my wall and a person grabbed me and shoved me into a bag!"

Mildred cocked her head with curiosity. "A bag?"

Dilana nodded. "A garbage bag, to be exact. He stuffed me in there and ran away with me. I was screaming in terror for my parents before Lewis woke me." Her eyes swiveled to her friend and she gave him a warm smile. "Thanks for saving me from that nightmare."

For a split second, a flush of pink radiated from Lewis's cheeks, but soon, it vanished and Lewis responded. "No problem."

Mildred placed a confronting hand on Dilana's shoulder. "Well, you'd better get to sleep. It's 3 in the morning."

Dilana nodded and hugged the caretaker before settling under the covers once again. "Goodnight, Mildred. Goodnight, Lewis." She mumbled as they exited her room. The visitors each responded and dispersed to their respective rooms.

Dilana's eyes drifted to her bedroom window and she immersed the view with eyes hungry for a distraction from her previous fantasy. She knew that tonight wouldn't be easy-not with the trace of her nightmare still intact. Fragments of the nightmare floated in her memory like wispy clouds. She tried to shove them away into the back of her mind, but the dream refused to cooperate and lingered there-on the surface. Since ignoring the event didn't seem to help, she decided that perhaps working the nightmare out might help her fall asleep. After a few minutes of deep though, she discovered there was really nothing questionable about the vision-except her captor.

Even in the dream itself, Dilana hadn't seen much of her kidnapper. Only two dim details stood out among the rest- two thin arm extended out at her and a strange glow emitting somewhere from the person's body. It sounded too weird to be true, but Dilana held no doubt against it. The glow was present-she could tell, but, of course, her memory had never been a trustworthy area.

Thus, Dilana tossed ideas around about the stranger, until she sunk into a troubled, but dreamless, sleep.


	2. Science and Frogs

**Author's Note: Okay. I have a few things to say:**

**This chapter is WAYYYYYYYY longer than the first. (It took up 8 pages on Word.)**

**This chapter is told from three different people's perspective (Lewis, Carolynn (Elizabeth900's OC character/herself) and Franny)**

**I am trying to decide how I want to write the next few chapters. I want to do it in either one person's point of view (POV) per chapter or more than one POV per chapter. Since you have seen both, you can tell me which you like the most. Please add in a review if you prefer:**

**One POV per chapter**

**Multiple POVs per chapter**

**A mixture of both**

**In any case, please enjoy chapter 2 and remember to review (even if you think this fan fiction is stinky)**

**~mtrfan1029**

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Lewis heaved a triumphant sigh as he set down the wrench he had used to tighten the last few bolts on his latest creation. His pride swelled as his eyes traced the machine's form. In reality, it more or less was a jumble of household items hammered, screwed, inserted, plugged and welded together into something that looked like a homemade TV, but to Lewis, it was the biggest innovation the world had ever seen. With its metallic glory and purpose it would serve to mankind, Lewis was beyond positive that his creation would claim first place at the science fair. Even with his boosted confidence, he still remained unsure of the newly born invention's success, what with all the past failures his machines had proved to be. Take his PB&J Spreader for instance. The ingenuous idea had unfortunately cost him another adoption interview and almost drove him to give up his love for inventing completely. Fortunately, his friends (namely Dilana) wouldn't let him throw his dreams into the dust. Thus, with inspiration, random items, encouragement (and a little research), the Memory Scanner was born. Lewis shook these thoughts to the back of his mind for the moment and placed the colander helmet atop his head. He still needed to test the Scanner before he could be sure to display it to the judges.

"_Now….Which memory should I use to test the Scanner out?"_ He wondered. Lewis furrowed his eyebrows, scrolling through the significant dates of his life, but there were only two memories he considered: when his mother gave him up or when Dilana first came to the orphanage. He decided upon the latter since he had built the machine specifically to probe the mystery surrounding his birth mother. Plus, he though experiencing the memory with the crowd for the first time would be more pleasing.

"Ah, the newly constructed creation is revealed to the public!" a voice announced behind Lewis just as he opened the keypad (AKA lunchbox) to insert the date into the Scanner. He casted a brief glance behind his back to see Dilana standing in the doorway, arms folded across her chest.

"Hello, Dilana" he greeted, removing his helmet and attached keyboard, placing both to the side.

"Did I interrupt something?" she asked curiously, seeing that the accessories he had previously worn were attached to the Memory Scanner.

"Actually, I was about to test the Memory Scanner as soon as you came in…" Lewis admitted.

"Oh. Well, then…I should let you get back to that." Dilana replied, turning around to leave.

"No, no. It's fine."Lewis insisted quickly. "You don't have to leave. Besides, it'll only take a few minutes to test the machine and I have plenty of time before I have to leave." He added.

Dilana narrowed her eyes, as if she was to challenge Lewis about having 'plenty of time', but she said nothing more about the subject.

"Memory Scanner, huh?" she commented, as she stood beside Lewis and admired his creation. "That seems ideal for me, yes?"

Lewis chuckled softly. "I guess you could say that. Tell you what: after the science fair, you can be the first person to use it after I present it."

Dilana's eyes widened in pure surprise. She looked quite pleased for the moment, as if this moment had been the one she had been anticipating for her entire life, but the expression was washed away as quickly as it had appeared. "Lewis, I can't possibly take that off-."

"No. I insist." Lewis interjected. "I know how bad your memory is and I'm sure you want to know more about your life before the orphanage."

Dilana didn't react for a moment and Lewis feared he had stuck a sensitive part. To contradict him, though, Dilana engulfed Lewis into a sudden embrace. "Thank you SO much, Lewis. This is the best thing that has ever happened to me!" Dilana exclaimed as she released Lewis from her crushing hug.

"Oh, it's no biggie." Lewis stated, suddenly feeling quite uncomfortable. He began to become extremely interested in smoothing out the creases in his argyle patterned shirt.

"Ughnnnnnn." A moaning voice sounded from the doorway. Lewis looked up from his attire to see Goob stumbling into the room, his eyelids fighting to stay open. "Hey, guys." He mumbled. "Do you know where my baseball glove is?" His words were barley coherent, as they were slurred together too much, but Lewis managed to decipher enough of his question to be able to grab Goob's glove from his bed and hand it to his roommate.

"Thank you." He replied just before his mouth parted into an enormous yawn.

"Someone must've been awake for too long." Dilana remarked, her eyes sparkling in a silent laughter.

"Lewis kept me up ALL night working on his stupid project." Goob remarked irritably, apparently unaware that Lewis was present during his remark.

Taking no offense, Lewis responded with surprise. "You were? I'm really sorry. If you had told me, I would've moved somewhere else."

Goob gaped, astonished, at Lewis, as if he had just admitted that he was the Tooth Fairy. He face remained in the position for a minute until Goob shook himself and flicked his hand in a dismissal of the statement. "Anyway, I'd better get going." As he said this he began to make his way out of the room. "See you guys later." He called as he disappeared down the hallway.

"Poor Goob..." Dilana commented, after Goob's unsteady footsteps were out of earshot. "I hope he can stay awake…….."

"Same." Lewis added. They both remained in silence for a while before Lewis clasped his hands together. "Well, I'd better test the Memory Scanner out…" he mumbled more to himself. Gingerly, he picked up the helmet. He had the helmet on halfway before his alarm clock's shrill call interrupted him.

"Oh no! Oh great! I'm gonna be late!!!" he exclaimed. Hastily, he tossed a blanket over the Scanner, picked it up and (with great effort) heaved it onto the red cart parked next to the table that had recently known Lewis's creation.

"Wait!" Dilana called after him as he grabbed the cart's handle. "You haven't tested the Scanner yet."

Lewis froze, feeling dread crawl up his spine, but he shrugged the resentment away. "Now's not the time. I'm sure it'll be fine." He continued his hurried exit until he heard a giggle.

"You do realize that you're rhyming, right?" she pointed out, her voice still holding fragments of laugher.

"So?" He answered simply, not wishing to repeat the act once again.

"Nothing. Carolynn and I will be there, okay?"

Lewis was already out of the room when he heard this. "Sounds great. See you there!" he called, racing down the hallway, his heart pounding with anticipation. Even so, Lewis couldn't remove the chilling thought that the Scanner had not been tested. He managed to successfully remove the regret. What could possibly go wrong?

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Carolynn flipped through the TV channels, searching for something suitable to watch while she waited impatiently for her friend to arrive. "_How long could Dilana possibly take?_" she asked herself with annoyance. It wasn't like Dilana to be this late. Of course, punctuality never had been Dilana's strong point; if she **was** running late it would normally be under 5 minutes, but, after checking her watch, Carolynn confirmed Dilana was a whopping 25 minutes behind schedule. Abandoning her channel surfing, she pressed the off button and tossed the remote aside. Seeing as she had nothing else to do, she began to fix her auburn hair to perfection.

Without warning, Carolynn's glasses slid off her nose and onto the carpet. Groaning with annoyance, Carolynn got up from the couch and walked over to where her glasses had fallen. Before she could pick them up, though, Mrs. Sayle picked them from the ground and handed them to Carolynn's outstretched hand. "I believe these would be more useful while wearing them." She commented playfully.

Carolynn smiled at her mother as she set her glasses over her blue-green eyes. She plodded back to the couch and resumed her impatient waiting. After a few endless minutes, staring into space, she stuck her hand into her jean pockets and removed her cell phone. Knowing Dilana, she probably wouldn't have her phone on, but there wasn't any harm trying to contact her. Quickly, Carolynn scrolled through her contacts until Dilana's name was highlighted. She then proceeded to select Dilana's cell number and highlighted Call. Just before she pressed send, however, the door bell echoed through the house.

Her mother scurried to the door, opened it and, after a muffled conversation with the visitor, she called to Carolynn. "Dilana's here!"

"_Finally!"_ Carolynn thought as she stowed her phone back into its pocket, gathered her purse, and walked to the front door.

Dilana stood on the stoop, her hair worn down as always and her black Converse shoes scuffing the concrete busily. As soon as she spotted Carolynn, a bright smile burst onto her face and she gave her friend a quick hug. "How are you, Carolynn?" Dilana questioned.

"Fine, you?"

Dilana didn't answer immediately. She instead turned her attention to Mrs. Sayle. "Thank you for letting me borrow Carolynn for the day, Mrs. Sayle!" she called as the two girls walked down the steps leading to the sidewalk.

"Oh, it's no trouble." Carolynn's mother replied. "Have fun, you two." Her words floated out of the house just before the front door closed.

Carolynn's giddy smile transformed into a frown as the two girls stood outside the Sayle's house. "What took you so long?" she demanded.

Dilana sighed, as if she had expected Carolynn to interrogate her upon her arrival. "Two kids made a HUGE mess in the kitchen while playing a game of tag……." Dilana answered irritably. "Mildred asked me to stay and help clean up."

Carolynn didn't look at all surprised. Being one of the oldest at the orphanage, Dilana often had to do chores and assist Mildred when a job called for more than two hands. Of course, Carolynn had her own share of chores to do around the house, but she could never imagine having to assist, let alone live with, that many children. "How big WAS the mess?" She asked curiously after a few seconds of thoughtful silence.

"Big enough." Dilana remarked as she started walking in a westward direction. "Thank goodness there wasn't any broken glass. It was only food and spilt liquids on the floor, really."

Carolynn nodded and looked around her surroundings. "Where are we going? You refused to tell me anything when we made plans."

Dilana looked devious for a second, but the look vanished. "We're going to the science fair!" She announced cheerfully.

"_Science Fair?"_ Carolynn echoed in her head. She wasn't against the idea; she had just anticipated the movies or the mall.

"I know it's not what you'd normally want to do on a weekend," Dilana remarked, as if she could tell what Carolynn was thinking about. "But I promised Lewis we'd go there to support him with his new invention."

"I see……" Carolynn responded. "What did he create?"

Dilana smirked and gazed at Carolynn mysteriously. "You'll see."

The two friends walked along the sidewalks turning down other streets occasionally until the middle school stood in front of them.

Carolynn and Dilana wasted no time entering the building and making their way to the cafeteria. The clamor originating from the fair could be heard from anywhere in a 3 yard radius of the cafeteria. Dozens of foldable tables were lined up in rough ladder structure, with two columns of tables flanking the walls and about three rows of tables in the middle. There were also two tables on the very top and bottom of the layout; both were vacant. The rest of the tables were adorned with the children's displays of science, ranging from the classic papier maché volcano to the complexities of building a microchip.

Dilana and Carolynn immediately began scanning the room for the familiar blonde head poking around somewhere, but Lewis was nowhere to be found. "Maybe we can't see him from this angle….." Carolynn suggested helpfully.

"Hmmm……" Dilana screwed her face in thought. "Let's ask one of the teachers."

"Okay!" Carolynn responded, agreeing. The two girls walked over to a pair of adults; a lady and a gentleman. One wore a lab coat, while the other had on a business shirt and pants.

As soon as Carolynn and Dilana got close enough, Carolynn announced. "Excuse me. Can we ask you a question?"

The lady wearing the lab coat whipped around and leaned her face down a little too close to Carolynn's comfort. She wore silver–rimmed spectacles and very clumpy mascara, as if she had applied the make-up while in motion. Her hair was curled at the edges and a "Hello, My name is…" sticker reading Dr. Krunklehorn was plastered onto the right side of the coat.

"Hello, little girl!" Dr. Krunklehorn began. "You are quite a dresser! I love your hair." Here she pinched a few stands of hair between her fingers and examined it closely, only to set in back into place a second later. "Where did you get it from? What's your name? Are you participating in the Science Fair? Wait a minute! You said something about a question! What's the question? I love questions!!!!!"

By this time, Carolynn was too stunned to answer the interrogation. The woman had just uttered 42 words without taking a single breath in between, not to mention her exhaled breath smelt heavily of caffeine. Finally, Carolynn shook herself out of her dazed expression and responded. "I wanted to ask if a student has checked in yet."

"I can help you with that!" a male voice from behind Dr. Krunklehorn called. Carolynn craned her neck to see beyond Dr. Krunklehorn's face. She spotted a portly man with a bushy mustache and balding auburn hair.

After successfully sliding away from Dr. Krunklehorn, she joined Dilana, who was proceeding to the male teacher. "Now," the science teacher began, adjusting his reading glasses. "Which student did you want to know about?"

"Lewis" Carolynn and Dilana replied simultaneously.

At the name, the male teacher immediately flipped through the multiple pages attached to his clipboard. After a few minutes of thorough examination, the male teacher shook his head in disappointment. "I'm sorry. Lewis hasn't checked in yet."

"Oh that's alright, sir." Carolynn reassured.

"Yeah." Dilana agreed. "We'll just look at the other presentations." With that said Dilana grabbed Carolynn by the hand and led her off to the mass of tables.

"Wait a moment!" the teacher called after them. "Just to let you know, Lewis is assigned this table." He pointed to a bare table situated next to him. "And please remind Lewis that he needs to check in if you see him."

"Gotcha!" Carolynn replied as she followed Dilana to a presentation a few paces away.

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"RRRIBIT!"

"Now, Frankie. Don't be resistant. This is your chance to shine."

The frog still squirmed in her hand, despite the stern words. Franny never understood why her best performer hated to perform in front of others beside her. Perhaps he had stage fright? Or maybe he hadn't gotten a good night sleep beforehand and was cranky as a result? Whatever the case, Frankie still needed to sing and dance, just like in rehearsal. Franny screwed her face up in thought, trying to remember what got Frankie the most confident in times of struggle…..

"Hey! Frogs! I wonder what she's got going on over there."

Franny stiffened at the words recently spoken. An audience so soon? Praying that Frankie would behave himself, Franny quickly set the frog into position and turned to view the guest who had spoken.

Two girls stood side-by-side, gazing in interest at the display. One had jet-black hair and brown eyes, while the other had auburn hair and blue-green eyes peering through glasses perched on her nose.

It didn't take Franny long to identify them both: Carolynn Sayle and Dilana. Or should it Dilana and Carolynn Sayle? Either way, they both were recognized with ease.

Franny had invented a simple way to remember other's names. She called it the "Hidden Name." If she had told anyone about this system, they may have seen it as labeling and perhaps making stereotypes, but she wasn't. She didn't **assume** someone acted like this, or because he or she did that they had to be this…….Her system was adding a word after their name that best fit their personality or countenance. She never gave them to people which she had no idea about or give a Hidden Name that would make the person self-concision or uncomfortable. Dilana and Carolynn each had been given a Hidden Name.

Dilana's name eluded Franny for a while, until she heard about Dilana's famous quick-minded act from her older brother Gaston, (who just happened to be in Dilana's class.)

According to his story, their teacher, Mr. Zlock, fainted randomly in the middle of teaching, leaving the middle-schoolers frightened and without a clue of what to do. While someone rushed to the classroom phone to notify the main office, Dilana bravely began to check Mr. Zlock's vitals and perform a bit of CPR she had learned from watching a television program on saving lives. By the time the ambulance arrived, Mr. Zlock's pulse had returned and his subconscious state began to fade. Days later, it was discovered the teacher's pacemaker had been malfunctioning and he was scheduled for a surgery to implant an artificial pacemaker later in the day. Of course the class recognized Dilana's heroic actions, rewarded her generously, and made her act neighborhood wide, with practically every local newspaper covering the story. Therefore, Franny finally hidden named her "Dilana the Quick-Witted" for her speedy thinking.

Carolynn's name, however, came as naturally as instinct. As soon as she had become acquaintances with Carolynn, Franny could tell the eighteen-year-old could become friends with just about anyone. Therefore, the name Carolynn the Befriender became hers. The only problem: she wasn't entirely certain "befriender" was, in fact, a word, but Franny felt that the term, realistic or not, fit the bill better than any other.

Everyone knew, from what Franny heard, that Carolynn and Dilana were friends. They were as close as sisters, despite the gaping age difference between them. The pair always managed to work out arguments between themselves and lend each other a helping hand, no matter what the situation. "_An ordinary story of friendship"._ Franny though as she stroked Frankie and greeted the girls with a smile.

"Hey Franny! Could you show us your project?" Dilana asked kindly, her eyes edged with interest.

"I would be delighted!" Franny replied, gesturing to the frog ensemble. "This is the product of a long-term assignment I had started a year ago. I had always had a passion for music, but I wanted to add more to the art rather than merely perform it. I wanted to present the world of music through a different source-one only found in nature." She had spent the entirety of last night memorizing those lines, making additions or subtractions to it to help it sound more professional. Smiling to herself at their success, she continued. "I have discovered through lots of research that frogs have more musical capabilities than humans. Thus, I have been training this group of frogs to sing along and learn as much music as possible. Let me show you a demonstration of my progress."

With that said she swiftly turned whirled around and eyed her amphibious pupils. "Now," she whispered lightly, "just like in rehearsal." Franny raised her hands in a conductor position and her frogs seemed to straighten themselves.

Franny's mouth opened in song. "Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti do!" she sung in a silky voice.

"Rrbit, rrbit, rrbit, rrbit, rrbit, rrbit, rrbit!" The frogs croaked simultaneously, only playing the scale Frany had just uttered backwards. Feeling confidence rise in her guts, she continued with her performance, which included the frogs croaking the melodies to "Happy Birthday", "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" (or "The Alphabet Song", since they have the same tune) and "Old McDonald Had a Farm". Franny giddily waved her hands in time to the beat. Noticing the animation her animals had blew her away, but as the last note of the song finished, the frog returned to their blank impassive faces. Franny felt a smile grace her face. Sure, the frogs could only echo simple tunes with no lyrics involved, but someday, she dreamed of her frogs forming words and sentences in their songs and soon singing songs with more complexities. Perhaps, she could even train them to play instruments! The idea seems idiotic for a moment, but a possibility. Franny saw the tiny instruments in her mind's eye-tiny doll-sizes instruments being played by her students.

A series of claps followed shortly after her barrage of thoughts. At first, Franny believed her imagination was taking over, congratulating her for some unexplained excellence, but when she turned back to face the crowd, she saw Carolynn the Befriender and Dilana the Quick-Witted applauding enthusiastically. Overwhelmed, Franny bowed dramatically and stepped aside to let her frogs be commemorated. Although they couldn't bow, some jerked their heads, as if trying to show some form of thanks for the generous praise.

"That was really awesome!" Dilana commented, her eyes twinkling.

"Yeah! I couldn't agree more!" Carolynn added with an augmented smile. "Maybe you can teach your frogs even more stuff!"

"I totally agree!" Dilana remarked. "This has a lot of potential."

Franny's mouth dropped. These were the best compliments she had ever received in her entire lifetime. "T-Thank you so much!" she studdered, as the girls said their goodbyes and walked away to other presentations.

Franny stuffed her hand into one of her cardboard boxes and pulled out some frog treats. As she presented a goodie to each frog, she wore a grin of ultimate satisfaction. "_Maybe you're right." _Franny conplentated in her head. "_Maybe…just maybe…..you two are right."_


	3. Special Agent Wilbur Robinson

**Author's Note: Chapter Three is here! (Yippee) There are some awesome features here that I had to add and I hope you like them.**

**1) Wilbur Robinson makes his cameo appearance!!!!!!!!!!! (Oh boy!) This is probably the most exciting thing YET! Since Wilbur is so awesome, I had to dedicate this entire to this awesome future teen. I had loads of fun with Wilbur and I hope you enjoy his POV!**

**2)Reader Dedications! Knowing how awesome it is to receive all these reviews; I need to thank the senders!**

**Elizabeth900- What would I do without you! You review every chapter and even help me generously with the story ideas. This fanfic wouldn't be possible without you! Keep on being awesome!**

**BlueNeonLights- Very pretty username! I love your enthusiasm too! I hope this chapter pleases your wondering for what happens next…Thanks for the reviews!**

**PedroCullenBloomTM- MAN, that's a long username! I'll call you Pedro for short, if you don't mind. If you DO mind, send me a more appropriate nickname (or I'll stick with the original username). I'm glad my story is cool. I try my hardest with the writing and stuff. I hope the chapter was up as soon as you like it!**

**3)"Coming Up Next" section - These will be added to the end of each chapter to let you all know what you should be expecting in the next installment. (Normally, it'll show who's POV the story is being told from and if there is a cameo appearance and/or guest character.**

**Okay, well enough dilly-dally! The story must continue! Hope you enjoy!**

**~Mtrfan1029**

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"_Wow"_

A singular word, standing alone in his brain was the first thing that he processed. He didn't utter the word, though; he kept it locked in his inner monologue, not wanted to verbalize his thought process.

The black-haired 13- year-old continued the scan of his surroundings. He was fairly surprised at how different this auditorium looked from the one his school used. Of course, the more baffling prospect remained that this **was** his auditorium. _"No wonder Dad renovated it."_ He remarked, his brown eyes darting back and forth from wall to ceiling to floor. _"It's way too plain and drab."_ In comparison, his auditorium had too many colors on the walls, including reds, blues, and greens and even……

The teen growled under his breath. Why was it so hard to keep his brain on task? Surely, if the Task mattered to him so much, he wouldn't drift off the subject for a second. Angrily, he bashed the palm of his hand against his forehead in self-discipline. Once his head began to hurt, he refrained from hitting it. Placing a hand gingerly on his forehead, he dizzily back up until he bumped into someone behind him.

He jumped a little, startled by his own action and turning around to give an apology.

A girl about his age returned his gaze. She was thin and physically fit, seeming to be athletic. She had long, jet-black hair and chocolate brown eyes, similar to his own. She wore a navy blue shirt with a jean skirt; if he didn't know any better, he would've thought the girl was himself with long hair…and more feminine features.

The girl gave him a kind smile. "Can I help you?" she asked friendly.

The boy was about to flee the scene to avoid embarrassment, but he still needed information on the victim's whereabouts….perhaps she knew something? There wasn't any harm in asking, but merely asking wouldn't cut it. No….he needed to sound professional, as if he were a true investigator, solving a massive crime (which was more of less his mission).

"Maybe…" He began, scratching his chin and eyeing the teenager-aged girl skeptically. "That all depends if you have to right information……"

The girl raised an eyebrow in suspicion. "Excuse me?" she said warily.

He motioned the girl to come closer with an index finger. When she didn't make any attempt to move, he walked over and put his hand on the right side of his mouth as if to indicate what he wanted to say was private.

"You see," he continued, lowering his voice considerably. "I need to know a few things about a certain someone whom I need to protect."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" The girl exclaimed, backing away from the boy a little bit. "I'm not just gonna give personal info about anyone I know to anyone who happens to waltz by and ask for it."

The boy furrowed his eyebrows. He should've known the girl would be defensive about this type of interrogation. Still, he needed to probe further. "I'm sorry. I should've introduced myself. Special Agent Wilbur Robinson of the TCTF." Quickly, he shoved a hand into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper only to return it to the pocket.

"TCTF?????" The girl was, of course, deeply confused. "What's that supposed to be, some fictional organization?"

Wilbur frowned at the sour tone in the girl's voice. "The acronym stands for Time Continuum Task Force and it is far from fictional." Wilbur hated every lie he spoke, but the latter fact wasn't a TOTAL lie. He and Carl had pretended to be agents for a fictional agency bearing the same name when they were younger. So what if the organization solely survived in his imagination?

"Anyway, that's enough about me." Wilbur stated quickly, wishing to discuss more important matters. "I want to know the whereabouts of the person I need to protect from harm."

'Okay…?" The girl still didn't seem convinced of Wilbur's "time cop" status, but she didn't appear adverse to the idea of telling location.

"I'm looking for a boy about yay high." Here Wilbur indicated the person in question's approximate height. "He has crazy blonde hair, blue eyes and wears glasses."

The girl looked even more bamboozled than previously noted. "Do you mean Lewis?"

Now it was Wilbur's turn to be confused. "_How does SHE know Lewis?"_ Wilbur wondered, but he refrained from presenting the question. Instead, he continued with his initial questioning. "Do you know where he is?"

"No idea." The girl responded flatly. "I'm as clueless as you, but he will be here soon."

Wilbur stroked his chin pensively. "I see…..Well, I'd like to know your name, Girl-I-Don't-Know, for future reference, of course."

"Dilana." The girl replied simply. "But that's all you are learning about me." She added sternly.

"Understood." Wilbur responded. He found himself to be quite disappointed at the lack of evidence, but at least he now knew someone who was on a friendly basis with Lewis. "Now, go run along to your little science fair and let me know if you see Lewis." He informed, pushing Dilana lightly at the shoulders as an indication of dismissal.

Dliana, to Wilbur's chagrin, dug her heel onto the tile and whirled around, shrugging Wilbur's hand off of her in the process. "I'm not saying ANYTHING or cooperating with you until I know how you know Lewis."

Wilbur was definitely not prepared for an explanation, but he managed to let no intimation that he was surprised. "I may ask you the same question."

"I didn't ask a question." Dilana stated in a monotone voice before continuing. "Anyway, Lewis and I have been living in the same orphanage ever since I was four-that's nine years!"

"I can do math!" Wilbur retorted.

Dilana rolled her eyes. "In any case, I know more about Lewis than anyone else."

"Oh really? Well, then ask me some questions!"

Dilana smirked, as if she could already tell who the victorious person would be, but Wilbur knew he would ace a bunch of questions about Lewis in no time.

"What's his favorite color?"

"Red." Wilbur didn't hesitate.

A fraction of Dilana's confidence was filched from her countenance, but she didn't flinch in asking the next question. "Favorite TV show?"

"Mythbusters."

"Favorite song?"

"Little Wonders by Rob Thomas." Wilbur announced proudly.

Dilana, now, was gaping at Wilbur in astonishment. "O-okay….." she studdered, still stunned. "I'll be off then." She slowly shuffled away.

Wilbur smiled to himself. He had succeeded in finding something useful about Lewis while playing a little game of trivia. He felt boosted with new confidence in himself as he strutted away. "_I could find Lewis, stop the time-space continuum from collapsing ,and return home before lunch."_ He though triumphantly, but deep within him, in the core of his sanity, he knew the problem couldn't be solved that easily.

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**Coming Next In Chapter 4:**

**POV: Dilana, Carolynn, and maybe Lewis**

**Special Features: First love interest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Elizabeth900:You're going to LOVE the next Chapta!!!)**


	4. Heels Over Head In Bruises

**Author's Note: Here's the next chapter, folks! Now, I understand my Author's Notes are sort of tedious, so I'll make this short and let you guys discover what happens, but I can't let you read this chapter without Review Responses!!!!!**

**Elizabeth900: I greatly appreciate your support of my fan fiction!!!!!! Maybe this chapter with truly show my thanks!**

**DarkMidnightStars: Keep it up? I was hoping to keep it down....... Just Kidding! Sorry about that lame joke. Anyway, thatnks for the compliments! I'm glad you like my story!**

**And that's all! Enjoy Chapter Four!**

**~mtrfan1029**

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Dilana's mind had been scrambled beyond rearrangement. Never in the thirteen years of her life had she ever been so befuddled.

"_The strange thing is no one could have possibly known so much about Lewis."_ She though as she treaded back to the displays where Carolynn remained standing.

"Where did you run off to?" Carolynn inquired immediately, tapping her foot impatiently on the tile floor.

"I took a detour," Dilana merely responded, "and I bumped into the strangest dude I have ever met in my LIFE!"

"A strange dude?" Carolynn echoed, bamboozled. "Could you define strange for me?"

"Well, he looks around like this is his first day in a building and then he comes up and says he's some agent from the future."

"Future?" Carolynn was taken aback. "Are you sure you heard that guy right?"

"Well…..he didn't directly say he was from the future, but the name of the "agency" implied time travel."

"Huh." Carolynn folded her arms across her chest. "Anything else?"

"Oh yeah! And he asked about Lewis."

"Why?"

"I don't know. He said something about protecting him."

"That's a sure sign of a stalker!!!" Carolynn exclaimed with alarm. "We'd better warn Lewis." With that, Carolynn scampered away, scanning the fair for Lewis.

"Carolynn!" Dilana called, desperately trying to keep in pace with her friend. Dilana finally caught up with Carolynn in front of Franny's display.

"Nothing." Carolynn stated, dismayed. "I didn't see Lewis's station."

"Well, we only checked half the gym…." Dilana pointed out. "Besides, Lewis may not be here."

"Isn't that his wagon over there?" the 18-year-old inquired, pointing to a table with a bulky something resting on it, covered by a brown blanket.

"Yep. That's his stuff all right." Dilana stated. "Let's get moving!" She took one step forward.

"**BOWLER HAT GUY!!!!!!" **The exclamation came seemingly out of nowhere. Before Dilana could fully comprehend what was happening, a black and blue blur skidded down the aisle, diving for Bobby Silverstone, who was masked by the starry cloth draped over his body.

"You won't get away with this!" The blur shouted as it grabbed the boy's ankles and caused poor Bobby to practically trip. Unfortunately, he crashed into Carolynn, sending her to the ground. Her head collided with the folding table, upsetting it and sending Franny's assembly of frogs catapulting through the air.

"My frogs!" Franny cried in horror.

"CAROLYNN!" Dilana screeched, rushing over to her fallen friend. Carolynn lay there, unconscious. Felling her pulse, Dilana determined it normal. Since there was no weld on her head, she didn't think Carolynn would suffer from a concussion, despite the fall.

The boy who had made the disturbance, Dilana discovered, was none other than Wilbur "Phony"son. He scrambled over to the scene and looked appalled. "I'm SO sorry!" he exclaimed, stuttering.

"You'd better be!" Dilana growled through gritted teeth. "You could've caused a serious injury!"

Wilbur stood there, frozen in horror, as if he truly wished he hadn't done the deed.

Suddenly, Carolynn stirred and her eyes fluttered open.

Wilbur saw it with his own eyes.

He couldn't deny that the cloaked figure strolling amongst the science displays was none other than the Bowler Hat Guy. Of course, Wilbur didn't recall any stars on his cape, but the despicable gentleman could be using another cloak to deceive the adolescent.

"**Bowler Hat Guy!**" He cried before he began his immediate pursuit of the figure. Sliding expertly down one isle, he sprinted straight down another, right to the Bowler Hat Guy. He dove onto his stomach and clutched the male's ankles in an attempt to trip the man. Unfortunately the starry blanket flopped over his body, obstructing his view and confusing him. A series of crashing sounds were heard, convincing Wilbur that he had successfully stopped the criminal in his tracks. 'You'll never get away with this-"he began a triumphantly as he wriggled out from under the blanket.

Instead of a filth-ridden man dressed in black rags, Wilbur was shocked to see and blonde haired boy wearing a baseball cap and holding a cardboard box of assorted planets. "-kid with science project." Wilbur finish his victorious sentence half-heartedly, his face heated with embarrassment.

"Dude," the kid said, seeming to attempt to be a gangster, "you almost ruined my solar system and that girl was hurt!"

Wilbur's eyes widened. He had injured someone? Rapidly, he peered over past the boy and to an upset table. The Dilana chick was crouched beside another girl who appeared to be unconscious. "I'm SO sorry!" Wilbur apologized, feeling a large amount of resentment and guilt flood his emotions.

"You'd better be!" Dilana whipped around, her face red in rage. "You could've caused a serious injury."

Wilbur was taken aback at Dilana's chastisement. Her words augmented his horror at his actions and he found himself paralyzed.

At that moment, the other girl opened her eyes a crack and moaned in pain. "D-Dilana?" she rasped, her eyes darting for her friend.

"Carolynn!" the fourteen-year-old cried, embracing the girl named Carolynn. "Are you okay?"

Carolynn responded, but Wilbur only saw her lips move. Wilbur felt himself surprised at how pretty Carolynn was. The girl had shoulder length auburn hair that rested neatly on her shoulders. Her peach skin was as smooth as porcelain and her eyes were two pieces of sea glass, similar to the pieces Wilbur retrieved each year at the beach. Wilbur at last lingered on her lips. They seemed as soft as cotton candy, only less sticky and smoother. Absently, he wondering if they'd taste like cotton candy as well…..

Now, Carolynn stood up on unsteady feet and began to walk towards him…….Wait! To him?????? Wilbur suddenly felt a knot form in his stomach. Was she going to introduce herself to him? He smiled dreamily, a tiny bit of drool escaping from a corner of his mouth.

Soon, it occurred to him that Carolynn had lost her balance. Nimbly, Wilbur extended his arms and caught Carolynn before she fell once again.

Carolynn looked up to Wilbur to thank him and Wilbur felt his heart beat against his ribs like a caged bird begging to be freed. The girl gazed, dumbfounded at Wilbur, although Wilbur was too dumbfounded himself to see her expression of astonishment. A second of silence passed between them, before Dilana grabbed Carolynn by the wrist and pulled her away from Wilbur's grasp.

As Carolynn was yanked away from him, her hand did not immediately come off his arm. Instead, it slid from his elbow to his wrist. Her fingers grazed the palm of Wilbur's sweaty hand and lingered on his fingertips before she was pulled too far to reach.

All of this occurred faster than Wilbur could register: he wasn't positive it had been real at all, but even so, he had felt a tingle race down his spine. After a few seconds of blank expression, he realized that the stream of drool now lingered on his chin. Embarrassed, he swiped the back of his mouth across the saliva to remove it from his face and turned to gaze in the direction of Carolynn's forced exit.

As he watched the girl disappear down another isle, Wilbur's heart ballooned with a new emotion….one he may not want to welcome.

"I'm SO sorry."

"You'd better be! You could've caused a serious injury!"

Carolynn furrowed her eyebrows. Those voices seemed sort of familiar…….at least one did, anyway. The voice that tickled her memory held a feminine sound to it. Carolynn somehow felt she had known someone that was a female, just like her….long ago…..

Sweat poured down her forehead as she tried to recall the girl…… Elaine? Lucy? Wendy? "_No……."_ Carolynn thought. _"It started with a D……"_

From this thought, more names poured into her head: Danielle, Dora, Dolores, Diana, Dilana, Deborah….

Carolynn's brain paused and backtracked to the second-to-last name. That word brought with it a stream of memories. As her eyelids parted, she called the girls name. "Dilana?"

Carolynn's vision was composed of vague shapes when she opened them. One shape hung over her field of view while the other stood farther ahead, more blurred than the other.

'Carolynn!" The first blurry figure cried, engulfing her in its arms. Her vision slowly improving, she returned the embrace once she had realized the figure had been Dilana.

"Are you okay?' This question could've been predicting within 2 minutes prior to the interrogation. Carolynn sat up, propping her back against the folding table.

"I-I'm fine." Carolynn stuttered, felling a wave a wave of nausea sweeping over her. Carolynn, out of reflex, placed a hand gingerly on her forehead and tried to stifle a groan.

Dilana frowned, folding her arms. "I don't think so, Carolynn." Dilana remarked, seeming not to believe Carolynn.

Carolynn rested her other hand on the floor. "I'll be fine, Dilana. Could help me get up?" she asked, removing her hand from her forehead.

Dilana opened her mouth to protest, but she shut it again, reaching down to pick Carolynn off the floor.

Carolynn fixed her shirt before taking an uncertain step forward. At once, her leg muscles gave in and found herself plummeting to the tile once again. She stuck her hands out, desperate to save herself from another bump.

Something unexpected broke her fall, Carolynn soon discovered. Shaking her head, she came to the realization that a person had done the deed, for two arms grasped onto hers. Still bewildered, she gazed up at her rescuer and opened her mouth to thank him/her.

Carolynn's heart froze for a millisecond, and then began to work uncontrollably fast. It seemed to her as if she had been plucked from the science fair and placing into the arms of a hero in a romantic novel. The teenager wasn't as old as her, thirteen at most. He wore casual clothing- the standard jeans and T-shirt getup. His thin, pale arms matched his slender body. His jet-black hair sported a cowlick, pointed high into the sky. He eyes, though, his deep chocolate eyes, were two pieces of candy. Carolynn found herself immersed in the boy's gaze, imagining swimming through his iris as if it were a sea of brown sweets. Her eyes eventually left his eyes, zigzagged down his nose and flew to his lips. Carolynn felt laughter bubble in the core of her chest. Was that a tendril of drool trickling out of the corner of him mouth?

Before Carolynn could vocalize her thoughts, another hand grasped her and yanked her out of the boy's arms. "Let get going, Carolynn." She grumbled.

Carolynn tried to resist, but Dilana's strength over powered. She, for some reason, didn't want to leave the boy. She attempted to hold on for dear life, never wishing to let go, but eventually her fingers reluctantly let go of the boy's hand.

She kept her eyes locked on him, savoring his sight until the two girls turning around a table. Carolynn wrenched herself from Dilana's grasp and glared at her friend with anger. "Why did you do that?" she cried, her face red with fury.

Dilana whirled around and faced Carolynn. "That was the crazy dude, I was talking about earlier." She stated simply.

"_**HIM?**__" _Carolynn though, astonished, that boy was way too cute to be some mess-up child would claimed to be the future. Carolynn didn't feel such a charming boy could be a mental case.

"Look, Carolynn." Dilana continued, seeming to understand that Carolynn wasn't convinced."He's suspicious. Plus, he almost gave you a concussion. It's best if we stayed FARRR away from him."

Carolynn wished to rebuke, but she felt Dilana wouldn't change her mind. Carolynn sullenly followed Dilana to Lewis's table, her mind thinking about the teenage boy. She smiled dreamily as she remember his face, especially his eyes- hoping that someday she would meet with him again and convince Dilana he wasn't an insane person that couldn't be trusted.


	5. Lies

**Author's Note: Sorry about the lateness of this chapter. I've been having some trouble with this chapter. I had a few ideas about what do to with it, but the real problem was being able to connect it to the rest of the story. (I didn't want the plot to fall apart.) Since the movie plot is the basis of this story, I have a little help, but it's sometimes hard to make changes while still keeping the original plot in there. In the end, this is what I came up with. I think this chapter's going to add a little twist to what you saw in the movie and feelings will be hurt (MUAHH-HA-HA!!!!) but don't worry, I won't make the characters suffer too much.**

**Also: I'm considering making Franny and Goob have much bigger parts here then they had in the movie (Yes. I know they have pretty big parts if you include their future selves, but I'm merely concerned with their younger versions.)So, tell me what you think of this. I also want to know which character you like the most (maybe rate them from one to ten???).**

**Sorry about my rambling. Now for Review Responses!**

**Elizabeth900: I can see you really liked that chapter. I wanted to make sure the first true romance was started off on the right foot. I hope this chapter will please you as well.**

**hellopuppy78: Wow…..I feel really uplifted after reading your reviews! I'm glad you love the story so much! (P.S I like Vocaliod, too. I was Ted for Halloween with my friend being Teito (spelling?))**

**Now for Chapter 5!!!!**

**Note: Minor cursing in this chapter. (It's not really anything special, but I just wanted to be on the safe side. Some people may give me a hard time if I don't have a warning.)**

* * *

Lewis didn't know what to think as Wilbur sprinted straight into the group of kid across the gym. He had met many people who had done some strange things (things that he didn't wish to specify), but he didn't know if Wilbur constituted as one of those people. Was it insanity that drove him? Or perhaps some sorrow that could only be removed by creating a fictitious story and setting so as to make himself think less about that sorrow? In either case, Lewis felt the teenager was out of his concern. Right now, his mind concentrated on his Memory Scanner. As he re-plugged cords and tightened some loose screws, he knew, in the recesses of his heart that this machines would be the one-the triumph above all others.

* * *

The stage curtains rustled, disturbed by a tiny brush of movement from a larger force. The person grabbed the edge of the wall with his grit filled-fingernails, resting them on the plaster. His brown eyes swiveled in their sockets, taking in the atmosphere…

"_Damn!_" he cursed in his head. "_I sound like a freaking tourist_!" He scolded himself, pressing his two rows of dentist nightmare against each other. He usually wasn't this vulgar-whether speaking or thinking- but at that moment he was quite annoyed with himself. You see, on his way here, he had stepped squarely in a brown surprise created by a dog whose owner either held no respect for others or was just too lazy to clean up after his pet. Grimacing at the scat smothered on his shoe, he swiped the heel on the concrete at least 40 times until he was positive none of the germs and filth had survived the friction. For the rest of his walk to the school and into the auditorium, he seethed in anger at the stupidity of the stool. Why did it have to be there in the sidewalk? Couldn't it just have moved over? Of course, he knew the impossibility of that and resolved to forget about the incident while he apprehended to the situation at hand.

He froze on Wilbur and smiled his yellow, wicked grin. _"He's distracted."_ He though happily. _"Good. No interruptions."_ The man thanked for the little girl there who seemed insistent on having the boy assist her in the recollection of her frogs. Now, his darling could go for their goal-the blonde kid across the way.

The hat hovered off his head and floated with grace over to the child. He rubbed his hands together manically chuckling to himself. "_How stupid that boy is!_" The man thought, smirking. "_He's so interested in that project and not in his future. What he doesn't know is that it is going to be destroyed right in front of him!"_

* * *

Carolynn was genuinely upset now. Not only had Dilana rudely interrupted her time with that boy, but her friend had suddenly ran off to Lewis's presentation saying that she wanted to help him set it all up.

"_Geez"_ She grumbled in her thoughts. _"I can't talk to a guy, but Dilana can hang out with Lewis all she wants? What's fair about that?"_

By the time Carolynn came near Lewis's table, a crowd of eager onlookers had clustered around the presentation. Carolynn had to shuffle around the fringes of the audience in order to find a suitable view of the spectacle.

Lewis stood in front of the covered machine with a helmet of some sort, made from a colander, sitting atop his head. He cleared his throat subtly and began his presentation. "Have you ever forgotten something and no matter how hard you try, you just can't remember it? Well, I propose that they are stored somewhere in the brain and I have created a machine that can retrieve those memories."

He grabbed a part of the brown blanket and, with a slight flourish, unveiled his wondrous creation. A bulky machine that resembled a crudely-constructed television sat upon the table. Carolynn scrutinized the gizmo, but couldn't decide the chance the latest Lewis product would have to succeed. In fact, Carolynn felt as if the machine held a certain quality its cousins lacked. Something about the way Lewis brimmed with joy at his project convinced Carolynn that Lewis had placed the upmost effort on the presentation. "I call it the Memory Scanner." He announced.

"Oooo. It's shiny!" Dr. Krunklehorn exclaimed, giddy with excitement. Carolynn didn't want to know if the doctor's childish disposition had any correlation to the caffeine present in her bloodstream, but Carolynn felt she would be better off leaving that as a mystery.

Carolynn's eyes drifted from the teacher to someone covered in frogs. Carolynn's heart skipped a beat as she recognized the black-haired boy from earlier underneath the green amphibians. She bubbled with laughter at the way Franny's singing group scaled Wilbur and clumped together in his arms. In that instant, Wilbur's head turned in her direction. Carolynn whipped her head around, facing straight ahead. For some reason, she felt making eye contact with the boy would be like some sort of curse. She waited for a few minutes, staring at Lewis intently, trying her best to focus on the presentation. Lewis had been explaining how the Memory Scanner operated to the viewers. He opened a Captain Time Travel lunchbox lying on his chest and prepared to punch a date into the keyboard.

"Hey, who's that?" a gym teacher questioned, pointing a sausage finger to a pair of knees resting on the wood flooring behind the science project. Lewis gazed at the teacher with confusion, but turned to look at where the male had indicated…….

* * *

Dilana tried to stifle her overwhelming excitement as she stood beside the table. She smiled at the Memory Scanner, who was masked underneath a ripped blanket. Lewis kneeled besides a cardboard box, busy connecting the helmet to the rest of the machine. As she made her way over to ask Lewis if he needed any assistance, a swish of fabric caught Dilana's attention. She halted in her tracks and tilted her head back in an attempt to spot the portion of blanket that had moved on its own. Curiosity claiming her, she moved behind the invention to the scene of the odd motion and was surprised to see an uncanny glow emitting from underneath the cloth, as if someone were shining a flashlight. In addition, a mechanical whirl was heard-a sound closely related to that of an unscrewing screwdriver. Dilana lifted the blanket up and slipped her head underneath the folds of brown.

Dilana was stricken by surprise at the thing standing on the base of the machine. A black body was supported on eight slender, metallic legs. A circle of incandescent light shone on a site of dismantling of screws. Dilana only had a second to glance at the robot before its flashlight flashed into her eyes. Squinting in the sudden light, she shielded the rays with her hand. After the light disappeared, she withdrew her hand and noticed the thing had made a hasty retreat. The only evidence of its presence was the dismantling. A metal piece holding the base to the machine was bent backwards and two screws were sprawled haphazardly on the blue base, in danger of rolling away. Dilana gritted her teeth in fury. Whoever-or whatever- had the nerve to tear apart her friend's dream wasn't going to succeed. As Dilana began to back away from the crime scene, she heard a voice:

"C'mon Lewis. Let's see your presentation. We're running short on time."

"_Shit._" She though, frantically searching for a screwdriver. She knew she shouldn't go directly to Lewis -not when he was about to present! Finally finding the tool she was seeking, she worked on positioning the metal piece back into place. When the piece didn't stay completely straight, Dilana figured the screws would solve this problem.

Dilana was thankful that the screwdriver had a magnet end that would allow the screw to remain attached to the screwdriver as she reassembled it. Placing the screw carefully onto the screwdriver's point, she inserted the tip of the screw into its respective hole and began a rapid twirling motion. At first, the screw fell out of place as Dilana tried to rapidly re-screw the metal, but she began to realize that slowing down a tad bit would be more efficient. As she tightened the screw into place, she listened to Lewis's voice.

"…and I have built a machine that can retrieve those memories. I call it-"

Suddenly, the blanket shrouding her head swished off without warning. Dilana froze, expecting to find people staring at her accusingly. Relieved that all witnesses were intent on Lewis's presentation, Dilana labored on. A few seconds later, Dilana wondered why there were two screws lying on the base instead of one... Then a shock wave of realization surged through her: in her subconscious state of nervousness, she had unintentionally unscrewed the screw, undoing her previous work. Gritting her teeth, she repositioned the screw, hoping she could finish the repairs without being noticed…

"Hey, who's that?" a deep male voice questioned. Dilana didn't need to wonder who was being pointed out.

"DILANA?" Lewis exclaimed. Dilana slowly turned to face her friend, feeling guilt claim her emotions. Lewis looked appalled, as if he were gazing at a murderer with a knife in his or her hand, the blood still fresh on the blade. Dilana seemed to mirror the image, with the screwdriver pointed at the machine, screw still attached to the "weapon". Lewis's disgusted face morphed from disbelief to sheer anger.

"YOU VANDAL!" he screeched, stomping furiously over to the girl as far as the cord attached to his headgear would permit.

Dilana jumped to her feet. "Me? Vandal? I'm trying to FIX this!" She gestured to the dismantled section.

Lewis laughed in a way that sent shivers down Dilana's spine. It seemed like Lewis was only laughing to convince himself this wasn't real-that someone would come around and tell him Dilana was only playing a joke on him. Dilana had wanted to begin chuckling and play along with Lewis's wishes, but Dilana felt that the orphan deserved to know that another person had been fiddling with his invention.

"There was another person here." She pleaded, praying Lewis would believe her.

"Another person? Could you give me a description?" The contempt in Lewis's voice almost made Dilana cry. Why did he not believe her? He had always trusted her-always took her word because he knew she'd never fib to him, but now….Dilana cussed under her breath when she realized, with a sinking feeling in her gut, that she possessed no such description of the vandal. Lewis gazed at her with enraged eyes, but something beneath the anger seemed to be the look of lost hope, as if Lewis had badly wanted Dilana to give him a description-give him a reason not to blame her….

Lewis's eyes suddenly lit up with a new understanding and for a brief second, Dilana felt that he finally believed that she wasn't the person to be blamed. In that same second, Lewis diminished that hope. "I know what you're trying to do!" He spat at her furiously, "You want to distract me and make me THINK the Scanner doesn't work when it does!"

Dilana's mouth fell open with astonishment. Did Lewis honestly think she would try a reverse psychology move on him so that he failed yet again? Dilana didn't know why Lewis was overthinking the situation so….

Lewis smiled in triumph. "Surprised I figured it out, huh? Well, you won't get away with it!" Lewis returned to his creation, turned a red knob to the right two times and tapped a button of a similar color once.

Dilana felt a jolt of horror zap through her. Lewis was about to damage something if Dilana didn't try to interrupt the presentation. "Lewis, wait! Don't do it" she cried desperately, but Lewis didn't care to listen to her. She growled, deciding her only choice would be to turnoff the machine without Lewis's consent. It may bury their friendship in a grave, but she couldn't bear to see Lewis hurt himself or hurt others all because of some stupid screws.

As Dilana began to tread forward, she paused as the Scanner revved to life. The screen display a fuzzy picture at present, but it was working. Dilana stood there, transfixed. The machine hadn't exploded-hadn't spat black smoke and soot into the air- hadn't spluttered and died. It lived, its metal gears running, its projector shining and its pride bursting like a firework, the embers glowing their dazzling colors.

As if a spell had been broken, the machine began to shudder convulsively like an unbearable pain seared somewhere in its mechanics. Lewis seemed to notice the machine's lack of stability and gazed worriedly at his creation. Someone in the crowd was shouting for Lewis to stop the Scanner as was Dilana.

The Scanner gave a cry of anguish it seemed, as a propeller rocketed off into the air and into a light fixture, showering sparks onto the people below. As if the excitement surrounding it had triggered it, a paper mache volcano dubbed Mt. Vesuvius splashed orange goo onto the fatty gym teacher, who in turn began stumbling around sightless. Knocking a science table over, Lizzy's fire ant farm emptied its stock of bugs onto the teacher, causing to scream in agony.

Before anything else could be done, total chaos broke loose-tables flipped onto their sides, posters and displays bent out of shape and crushed by dozens of feet rushing to escape the gymnasium, circuits fried by the shower of the overhead sprinkles as they tried to extinguish the tiny flames the sparks from the light had giving birth to.

Dilana stood surprised at the bedlam occurring before her eyes. She barely noticed her damp hair sticking to the sides of her face or the fact that some were shooting accusing glances at her. Lewis, by this time, was beyond shock. He faced Dilana with the angriest face she had ever seen him wear. Dilana felt a foreign drop of water streak her cheek, one that soon blended with the water that lingered on her face from the sprinklers. "Lewis..." Her voice cracked in several places and she winced at its hoarse sound. "Lewis, I-" She tried again.

"Shut up, Dilana. I don't want to hear from you ever again!" Lewis growled, the rage almost unbearable.

"But I-" She attempted to speak.

"I SAID SHUT UP, YOU LIAR!" He screeched so loudly that the whole of the gym focused their pairs of eyes on the two orphans. "I HATE YOU, DILANA! DON'T EVER, EVER DARE TALK TO ME AGAIN!" He shoved Dilana and sprinted away, tears trailing down his face.

Dilana barely noticed the blur of another person passing by her, shouting Lewis's name and she collapsed to the ground, kneeling on the damp tile floor. She sobbed into her hands, her shoulders shaking violently. She heard the sprinklers clack to a stop, the remaining water dripping over her, but she didn't have a care in the world.

* * *

Carolynn never remembered remaining in shock for so long before, watching Lewis explode as he found out Dilana had been apparently fiddling with his invention. Then, he continued the presentation and in a blink of an eye, water was soaking her clothes and people were running around, trying to keep everything under control. She didn't move when Lewis threw the colander helmet to the floor in fury, didn't gasp in astonishment when Lewis screamed at Dilana, didn't flinched when the Boy flew past after Lewis when the blonde exited. It wasn't that Carolynn didn't care-she had tears in her eyes and a disappointment in the pit of her stomach. She was merely numbed of all usual reactions, as if someone had injected nova cane into her system.

Carolynn began to move when she witnessed Dilana fall to her knees, sobbing. Numbly, Carolynn placed a comforting arm around her. "Are you okay, Dilana?" she asked, rubbing Dilana's shoulder in solace. Dilana removed her hands from her face and gazed at Carolynn. The veins in her eyes were prominent and the skin lining the top of her lower eyelids were tinted pink from her tears.

"I feel terrible!" she sobbed, tears continuing to streak down her face. "I can't believe Lewis thinks I purposely destroy his project. I'm so damn stupid."

Carolynn frowned. "Don't curse, Dilana, even if you are angry. Crying your eyes out isn't going to help the matter."

Dilana sniffed and took a shaky breath. "I suppose that's true," she commented, "but it's too late now, isn't it? Lewis hates my guts and no one believes that I wasn't the person who ruined Lewis's Memory Scanner!"

"I believe you, Dilana." Carolynn replied after a moment of silence.

Dilana had a look of disbelief on her face. "You're lying!"

"Give me a break, Dilana. I can tell when you mean something or not! To be honest, it's not that hard…"

A wobbly smile worked its way onto Dilana's face. "Well, that's nice to hear." She rasped, picking herself off the floor. "Anyway, I need to apologize to Lewis and get him back here. He deserves to have another go at his machine."

Carolynn nodded in agreement, following her friend out of the auditorium, failing to noticed the pair of eyes watching them as the two girls left the gymnasium behind.

* * *

**Coming Soon: Chapter 6-To the Future**

**POVs: Bowler Hat Guy, Wilbur, Lewis, one of the OC (haven't decided which yet) and perhaps either Franny or Goob.**

**Thanks for reading and please click the magical green button below!**


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